if everyone on 2+2 believed he was wrong, that does not mean that he should be trainwrecked.

This mchine character is an odd fellow. Take a look at his posting history. He only appears to frequent scamming threads.
First he was backing PSUMike in his thread about greasing at the WSOP.
Next he was backing PSUMike in the airport thread. He was also accused of being PSUMike in that thread.
...and now this.


Hi Mike.

tbf he's not saying Zach was right, he's saying the negative attention that this thread has brought him is compensation enough for the remainder of the debt

it cost you your reputation, too bad you didn't make it a good one!

ken, this is what you and zach dont seem to have any grasp on: TOMAS SHOULDN'T HAVE TO JUMP THROUGH ANY ****ING HOOPS TO HAVE TO GET THE MONEY HE IS RIGHTFULLY OWED.

there is no "negotiation". he made a deal. anything other than fulfillment of this deal in its entirety is theft.

both of you are morally bankrupt.

As judged by him. It goes from flat stealing 4k to a 4k penalty for exposure.

In a world where scammers exist, the idea that exposure of someone who has kept your money merits him continuing to do so is repulsive. So all I have to do is do someone wrong and then claim damage to my reputation once they call me on it. He's proposing a license to steal.

Honestly the whole concept of impossible to fix damage to reputation is bunk. If Zach paid out now and apologized, his reputation would correctly reflect his initial bad decisions and subsequent making good. Kartinken is inventing claims that are not supported by anything.

.

edit: what doug said.

Zach sounds like in most ways he's a decent person (in most situation/cases) who inspires loyalty in his friends. However, he's wrong here and trying to claim that somehow Tomas' reaction to being wronged now negates the money owed that inspired the original reaction is ridiculous and I think you would see that if you weren't so close to the situation and somewhat blinded by your desire to protect Zach. And nitpicking with words is not doing any good; whether it's a scam, theft, welching or vomiting animal crackers doesn't change the fact that Tomas is out four thousand dollars that had been part of a fairly negotiated deal.

Whether you could have fixed this or not is irrelevant at this point and claiming such and thus blaming Tomas for not coming to you doesn't help anyone or make Tomas more wrong or Zach more right.

You've stated that you know Zach's employers and that they like and respect Zach. This should mean that so long as Zach pays the money back eventually (after making clear to Tomas soon that he will do so and when) no immediate horrible life damage will have taken place (ie. lost income/job). Doing so will do tons to clear his name, as it will be reported herein, the clamor of this thread will die down and lessons will have been learned. However, should he simply continue avoiding the issue, it will follow him for years and do far more damage than anything so far.

I personally have made a ton of mistakes in my life, even very recently. Manning up, admitting them and doing your best to rectify them is the only way out. Talk to Zach and get him to understand this or it will truly be a much harder lesson for him than it needs to be. You might also learn something about perspective from all this.

What exactly are we hoping to achieve by contacting his employers?

Totally disproportionate revenge, exacted by NVGers who really don't care what happens to someone so long as it's funny to them.

By the sounds of it.

I don't think 'we' are doing any such thing. There was one poster who claimed to live in Zach's area who stated he would be putting up posters in the vicinity of Zach's workplace about this come September, I believe. But as long as something like this is online and his name comes up frequently in it, any employer, potential employer, or whomever, will come across this simply by googling his name. The 'achievement' of this, and possibly of someone putting up posters, is pressure to do something to right a wrong that cannot be achieved in court or really in any other way.

I don't believe that donkey paid the irs any taxes and notifying the irs would be the best play and very fitting considering this thread.

This is literally the dumbest thread I've ever read on 2p2.

Somehow Ken Krouner has made himself out to look worse than Zachary Parker.

So here's an analagoy that really and truly explains what's going on here: Jesus walks up to a bank with a friend to buy 16 pizzas. The bank teller says he’s only offering parlays. Jesus defecates on the pizza box he brought with him while his friend holds a gun to his head, and when finished, Jesus offers his wallet to the bank teller. The bank teller refuses the wallet, Jesus and his friend leave together, never to return, because the bank teller is a rapist. Pretty certain that sums this up way better than the actual facts we’ve been presented…

Actual facts: Zach Parker is, judging by the picture you all continuously post, a kid. He is not, in fact, a bank. He is not Jesus. He is not a pizza delivery guy, a pizza delivery company, and call me crazy, I don't think he's a rapist either. Tomas made a deal with a kid who just so happened to have a frozen FTP account with $16,000 that he legitimately won playing poker. Rather than explaining all of this with some sort of grand analogy, I am going to explain the facts using, wait for it, how the law here in America interprets what actually happened.

Alright, let’s start off with some definitions found in Article 9:

§ 9-102(a)(28) "Debtor" means:
(A) a person having an interest, other than a security interest or other lien, in the collateral, whether or not the person is an obligor;
(B) a seller of accounts, chattel paper, payment intangibles, or promissory notes; or
(C) a consignee.

§ 9-102(a)(12) "Collateral" means the property subject to a security interest or agricultural lien. The term includes:
(A) proceeds to which a security interest attaches;
(B) accounts, chattel paper, payment intangibles, and promissory notes that have been sold; and
(C) goods that are the subject of a consignment.

§ 9-102(a)(9) "Cash proceeds" means proceeds that are money, checks, deposit accounts, or the like.

Now let’s go to the relevant portion of Article 9:

§ 9-312(b)(3) a security interest in money may be perfected only by the secured party's taking possession under Section 9-313.

§ 9-313(a) Except as otherwise provided in subsection (b), a secured party may perfect a security interest in negotiable documents, goods, instruments, money, or tangible chattel paper by taking possession of the collateral.

In this situation Zach is the debtor, in that he was given $8,500.00 for an unvested interest in $16,000.00 which was to be owed to Thomas once the interest vested (vested vs. unvested simply means unobtainable vs. obtainable after a certain event). When the FTP account was accessible again, the interest in the $16,000 vested, and Zach was to pay that money to Tomas. The main legal mistake that Tomas made was in declining to accept the password to Zach’s FTP account. This made it that so that Zach still owed him the $16,000.00, but Tomas never perfected an interest in that collateral. Had he chosen to perfect his potential security interest by gaining control of the account in question, he would have been a secured party with a claim to that money, as opposed to an unsecured party with a claim to that money. One of the main things that everybody here has to realize is that Tomas never had possession of the money in question, it was simply promised to him once he had a vested interest in it. You can’t “steal” something that was never owned by the other party. It’s legally impossible.

So what is point of all of this, you may ask, who cares? This is my point: Tomas never had possession of the account. It was always in Zach’s control, meaning Tomas never perfected a security interest in the collateral. This essentially makes him nothing more than an unsecured creditor. The most common example of an unsecured creditor is a bank when it issues a credit card. If the debtor chooses not to pay on the credit card (when he signed a contract saying he would) the bank can go after the debtor in court (but it’s time consuming, expensive, and rarely worth it). Just as an example of how weak an unsecured creditor’s position is: a debt buyer, sometimes a collection agency or a private debt collection law firm, purchases delinquent or charged-off debts from a creditor in today’s market for approximately 4-7% of the value of the actual debt.

The flip-side of this would be a secured creditor. The most common example of a secured creditor would be a bank on a home loan. They have a security interest in the home through the mortgage, meaning that if the debtor/homeowner welches on the debt (which he was obligated to pay per contract) the bank can sell the debtor’s home to cover the debt still owed on the loan (this is known as a foreclosure). If the sale of the home does not cover the full amount owed on the loan, there will be a deficiency judgment for the remainder, which is now an unsecured debt because the collateral has been cashed in.

Now, in both examples that I gave, the debtor signed a contract saying “I will pay you X amount,” and then breached that contract by not paying the full amount they were contractually obligated to pay. I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I don’t think anybody would ever accuse these debtors of “theft”, “conversion”, or (this was my favorite) “felonious fraud.” I’d hate to see how a thread in this forum progresses if this group hears about somebody filing for bankruptcy, what a “lying scumbag” that “scammer” would have to be, am I right? Think of the tens of thousands of dollars he’s just outright stealing from his creditors. He signed fair deals with all of them, and now the state is just going to let him discharge those debts as though they never existed? The world we live in just doesn’t make sense.

Side-note: the three worst types of debt you can have are student loans, domestic support obligations (alimony, child support, etc.), and TAXES. They are not only non-dischargeable in bankruptcy, but the remedies to collect them can be devastating. In short, it makes WAY more sense to make certain you have money for taxes than an unsecured creditor. Second side-note, and I mentioned this in my first post as well, Tomas decided to “out” Zach well before he filed his 2014 taxes… There’s no telling how much money Tomas could have gotten back, but it’s clearly too late now. So where does that put Tomas then? Well, if I were to give Zach advice on this one, I would say pay your secured debts first, your utilities second (yeah, that does make sense, I’d rather have no power than no house or no car), and your secured creditors third, with Tomas at the bottom of the list of those secured creditors.

Tomas has no standing above any of his other secured creditors. He in fact has less legal standing due to the fact that he’s in Thailand, interest is not accruing on the debt, Zach wouldn’t have to pay Tomas’s attorney’s fees etc. should this somehow ever make it into court, and the “contract” is made up of Facebook posts. Most importantly, Tomas decided to “expose” or “out” Zach in a community of his peers before Zach was even given the chance to see the damage his 2014 taxes would bring.

While we're on the subject of debt collection “tactics,” if you will, I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I know I wouldn’t condone this type of behavior in a debt collector. Neither would the laws here in the States, just sayin… In fact, there are Federal laws against all of the tactics that have been used in this thread. I’m not saying Zach should try and sue, that would be idiotic, Tomas lives in Thailand. I’m simply saying that while all people in this thread believe they are justified in their actions, America has enacted laws to protect against exactly this type of negative behavior. Actual threats to tell Zach's bosses at his workplace of his failure to pay, to post fliers damaging his reputation in the community, to get Hell’s Angels to track him down and make him pay (I have to assume that last one wasn’t serious, but seriously, come on – not to mention there were other posts that threatened physical violence). Check out the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act for starters, 15 U.S. Code § 1692, it’s a real quick Google search. If a debt collector (in the States) attempted any of the methods I have seen so far in this thread, a lawsuit would more likely be filed against the debt collector than by him.

Had you (Tomas) known enough to ask for Zach’s password and he knowingly gave you a fake one, THAT would have been a scam. Had Zach sold the rights to his FTP account to multiple buyers, THAT would have been a scam. This, my fine angry mob, is no scam. This is simply somebody prioritizing who to pay, and from the looks of it, Tomas if far from a top priority. I’m not saying Tomas was stupid to turn down the password, from the general dialogue here this was not common knowledge. That being said, consider the $4,000.00 loss a costly mistake, but at least Tomas taught everybody in this thread something new. Again, this is legal information, NOT legal advice.

As a bit of friendly advice, however, I would say all of Zach’s friends should take a hiatus from this thread. Radio silence from one side definitely couldn’t hurt here, I feel as though this has already gotten a bit out of hand...

i'm assuming that's legally correct, but from a moral position zach is despicable and i think he deserves to have his named dragged through the mud (and maybe some broken glass while he's at it), if for no other reason than punishing him for acting the way he has, but also it may act as a deterrent for any future scammers. while that's probably unlikely, it's not out of the realms of possibility. if it takes ruining one scumbags reputation to save even one person in the future from being scammed then i think it is worth it.

I mean, honestly, did you even read my post...

yes, very roughly paraphrasing you seemed to argue that zach is legally fine taking this course of action because tomas was negligent in securing collateral (the ftp acct password), and that if tomas does receive a single dollar more then it should be absolutely the last debt/obligation that zach meets. you then argue the semantics of whether or not this was a scam. so what?

did you read my comment? i dont care about the finicky minutiae of the legal world. i'm living in the world where zach made an agreement and even if legally the terms or processes were flawed there was a definite good faith element to it.
zach then decided to renege on his end of the agreement, after he decided the original deal wasn't as good for him as he first thought (even though from other posts itt it turns out those tax worries were unfounded).

if this thread is the worst thing that happens to him he has gotten off lightly imo.

Pete Blow is a strange cat. First he posted in the Borovetz scam thread and now he is posting on this thread. He is a foreigner who lurks on a US poker site and fantasizes about what alternate accounts a scammer might be using. Also, he calls himself Pete BLOW. Creepy.

Also, the people who were talking about putting up posters of Zach and calling his employers were just joking around. I believe you people call this "trolling." So don't sweat it, Zach, but you still should make a deal with Tomas to pay back the money. It is the right thing to do and will clear your name.

Quoting american legislation for an agreement that may very well not be under american jurisdiction.

Regardless of what is legally right or wrong, it still doesn't make zach (or ken for that matter) any less of a prick. There are lots of things that are legal but still morally reprehensible.

Genuine question here as I'm always curious when I see this sort of thing. You join 2+2 a few days after this thread goes up and then the only posts you've made are on this thread. Now given that most people join 2+2 to talk about poker, strategy etc, why is it that you've only joined to discuss this thread?

Nope. You keep trying to eloquently explain why Tomas' actions are incorrect and explain away Zach's absolutely atrocious actions.

Since there is no legal protection for Tomas as you so vehemently insist, he (and the rest of us) must resort to public outings as our only recourse.

How is this your 4th post? Who are you?

Ken Krouner claimed that Zach already informed his employers about this scam. Care to share with us why he did so, Ken? What was told?

whats wrong with just doing the right thing even though your reputation took a hit? inherently good people who made a mistep do it all the time.

Damage to a rep is fixable maybe, step by step and it starts with doing the right thing now. Be involved with the thread, explain your actions, say your sorry. work on some stipulations for editting the OP title and content. maybe an explanation of the situation you found yourself in and what made you take this line. And move on.

But in the end we expect good people to just do the right thing, its not even about the rep.

Nice effort but you are wrong on bolded one. It's not Zach prioritizing, it's Zach saying he will not pay and it's not negotiable.
In my first posts in this thread I've noticed it would be completely different if Zach was like: "I am busto, had to pay other obligations, let's work some paying schedule once I am back on my feet". It wasn't that though.

Also here:

You are saying that mere fact of securing the password changes the situations (as if Thomas would be in possession of the account then). It just doesn't make any sense. It might be American law when it comes to bank accounts (I have no idea really) but it doesn't make any sense when it comes to offshore account on a poker site. How the act of securing the password changes anything when it comes to obligations and ownership of the account? The account would still legally be Zach's. Securing the password doesn't change it. It's like saying that if bank hasn't secured a key to a front door of a house it can't forclose.
Anyway, your main point is that Zach is in his right to pay other obligations first and I agree. I don't think anyone questions it. If Zach was like: "I need to buy food, pay taxes and pay medical bill but I am going back to you once I am on my feet to schedule subsequent payments" nobody would cry scam. The scam is refusing that the money is owed at all.


Another thing is here:

Poker community is an international one with many deals being made under no clear jurisdiction. Obviously if you have courts to sue/appeal you don't apply those debt collecting tactics yourself, that's what justice system is for. It's different in a community without access to those tools though. Here reputation fulfills that role as there is no court of peers. Even here though, Zach could have volunteered to have his case adjudicated by peers in a community and nobody would cry scam. He refused to that and refused to admit he still owes 4k (which by the way you seem to agree that he does).

Maybe Facebook posts aren't very real but accepting 8.5k of very real USD seems to indicate the contract was in fact agreed on.